432 BULLETIN 17 6, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



territory during the breeding season. Under the influence of jealousy they be- 

 come perfect furies; their throats swell, their crests, tails, and wings expand; 

 they fight in the air (uttering a shrill noise) till one falls exhausted to the 

 ground. I witnessed a combat of this kind near Otumba, during a heavy fall of 

 rain, every separate drop of which I supposed sufiieient to have beaten the puny 

 warriors to the earth. 



Field marks. — The lucifer liummiiigbird might be mistaken, by 

 the casual observer, for Costa's hummingbird, as the two are some- 

 what alike in size and in the shape and color of the gorget, but there 

 are decided differences in shape and color pattern. In Costa's the 

 entire top of the head is of the same brilliant violet-purple as the 

 gorget, whereas in the lucifer hummer only the throat gorget, with 

 its elongated lateral extension is of this brilliant color. Furthermore, 

 the male lucifer has a deeply forked tail, with very narrow lateral 

 feathers. The female lucifer has a rounded, or double rounded, tail 

 and buffy under parts. But the best field mark for both sexes is the 

 long, decidedly decurved bill; no other North American humming- 

 bird has such a curved bill. 



DISTRIBUTION 



Range. — Southern Mexico ; accidental in Arizona and Texas. 



The normal range of the lucifer hummingbird is from Jalisco 

 (Bolanos) south to Guerrero (Taxco and Chilpancingo) and east to 

 Puebla (Chalchicomula). 



Casual records. — A specimen was collected in the Chisos Moun- 

 tains, Texas, on June 7, 1901 ; and an adult female was taken at Fort 

 Bowie, Ariz., on August 8, 1874. 



Egg dates. — Mexico : 6' records, June 15 to July 4. 



AMAZILIA TZACATL TZACATL (de la Llave) 



RIEFFER'S HUMMINGBIRD 



Plates 71, 72 



HABITS 



Contributed by Alexander Frank Skutch 



This glittering green hummingbird, with a bright chestnut tail, 

 abundant and familiar over a wide range in the warm.er portions of 

 both Americas, is merely a wandering straggler within the territory 

 of the United States, where it has been recorded only twice, both 

 times in the neighborhood of Brownsville, Tex., just north of the 

 Mexican border. Its breeding range extends from the Mexican State 

 of Tamaulipas to eastern Ecuador. In the Central American portion 

 of this range it is, from Panama to Guatemala, the member of the 



